Exposing the Achilles’ Heel of a major cancer gene

Cancer is a malady of our genes: certain DNA mutations that accumulate within a cell and its progeny enable them to wildly proliferate, overcoming the myriad of checkpoints that protect against unwarranted cellular growth.

Cancer-provoking (oncogenic) mutations fall into two major types: those that exaggerate the activity of normal growth-promoting genes (‘jamming the accelerator’) and those that remove the activity of normal growth-suppressing genes (‘destroying the brakes’).